Busy time for the Scouts in Kenya

Two-week Africa stint

Dur­ing a packed fort­night they com­pleted con­struc­tion of five dou­ble-pit la­trines funded by lo­cal do­na­tions, helped a com­mu­nity re­pair roads and climbed to 14,000 feet on Mt Kenya, pic­tured be­low.

The two-day hike was par­tic­u­larly hard for some and their first ex­pe­ri­ence of the ef­fects of alti­tude.

The trip ended with a visit to Baden-Powell’s grave in Ny­eri where the Scouts re­newed their promises and had a games ses­sion with Scouts from the Aber­dare moun­tains.

Scout leader Paul Hod­son said: “They have ex­pe­ri­enced a dif­fer­ent way of life and pushed them­selves way be­yond their com­fort zone.

“They have shared ex­pe­ri­ences with Kenyan school­child­ren and Scouts and learned to re­spect peo­ple for who they are.

“We never in­tended the Scouts to reach the sum­mit on the Mt Kenya trip but one of the young lead­ers did go up as far as Point Le­nana only to find him­self in freez­ing fog.”

Paul added: “Cas­tle Dou­glas and Gal­loway in gen­eral have been fan­tas­tic in their sup­port.

“It is a credit to the town and or­gan­i­sa­tions such as Ro­tary and the Gal­loway As­so­ci­a­tion of Glas­gow that they recog­nise the im­por­tance of in­vest­ing in the life op­por­tu­ni­ties of our young peo­ple.

“The world is get­ting smaller and to­day’s youth need to en­gage with the global com­mu­nity on an equal ba­sis if we are achieve a sus­tain­able fu­ture.”

The Scouts thank all the in­di­vid­u­als, com­pa­nies and or­gan­i­sa­tions who helped them with fundrais­ing for build­ing the la­trines and to­wards the cost of the trip.